


unfrozen in time, unfrozen in space

by SaintTethys (noirCellist)



Series: The Arctic Affair [2]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Thing (1982)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1980s, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Arctic Research, Biker Francis!, Enemies to Friends, Gay Fitzjames!, Gen, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Rivalry, Science Fiction, The Francis Crozier Self-Loathing & Internalized Homophobia Show, some of the characters are American!, this is a very highly atmospheric piece of fiction, we have it all folks, written as a bunch of vignettes because i am gay and foolish
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:47:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27537802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noirCellist/pseuds/SaintTethys
Summary: “What, precisely, are we tasked with doing, again?” Fitzjames asks, looking irritated. Jopson and Blanky look at each other, sharing a moment of inscrutable telepathy. Jopson begins more cautiously, with less professional aloofness than a moment ago. “What do you gentlemen know about extraterrestrial life?”In 1983, a private investor by the name of Cornelius Hickey awakens something long frozen, deep in the Arctic ice. Rival spies, stubborn and suspicious of one another, and in denial about the magnetism between them, Francis and James are assigned the task of investigating.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Series: The Arctic Affair [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2120358
Comments: 7
Kudos: 25
Collections: Fall Fitzier Exchange





	unfrozen in time, unfrozen in space

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wreathed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wreathed/gifts).



_June 23rd, 1983. 0314 hours. A run-down jazz bar in the heart of Greenwich Village, New York._

This bar is smoky and humid, another in the benighted string of every other nameless bar he’s played. Every second patron at each spindly little table is demarcated by the glowing cherry of a cigarette, indistinct in the yellowed spotlights that ring the tiny excuse for a stage that Francis sways atop. He taps his fingers on the scratched keys of his old saxophone and lifts it to his mouth for the last song of his set - _this crowd doesn’t want anything too challenging, I’m sure -_ and taps the barest beat of a pickup with his foot. The sound that he coaxes into the thick night twines around the cigarette smoke that curls to the low, damp ceiling of the bar, and perfumes the darkness with its brassy color. The dancing jitter of the cigarettes slows, and the rough rumble of conversation quiets and becomes viscous. Breath fills the saxophone, fills the room. He feels a warm glow of satisfaction bloom in his chest, and almost misses the downbeat of the next measure as the music thrums through him.

He plays a sort of variation on a Mingus piece he’d heard once, scraping through the fuzzy speakers of a hotel radio. Francis is not a _great_ improviser, and it’s easier to get lost in the shuffling cards of memory he keeps tucked inside his skull than it is to find his way through an improvisation at the end of his set and call it good. _Green walls, beige carpet, her silhouette outlined by the gold of a streetlight, wind through the thin curtains, his waistcoat and her stockings on the floor, the brass buckles of his beaten-up sax case the only other bright thing in the room -_

His fingers catch and he blows an unexpectedly high sixteenth-note. His toes keep tapping. The shriek becomes a theme and he breathes it through, looping over and over again, in octaves, in fifths, changes keys and makes it minor and draws it out until it sounds more like a sob. 

A flash of red through the glare of the lights catches his eye and he blinks, pulls the whole thing back together again. A tall man stands up from his table, lithe and graceful, dressed entirely in black but for the shock of a red scarf wrapped around his neck that’s so caught Francis’ eye. He’s arm in arm with another trim-looking fellow, him in a waistcoat and floaty, utterly impractical shirt, and they’re leaned towards each other in a way that Francis can’t think of in any way but as _intimate_. Suggestive. Francis’ stomach flips; but this time he keeps his tempo. 

The man in the red scarf turns around and, in the haze of the barroom, tosses _Francis_ a wink like he’s tossing a coin into a fountain for luck. 

They leave together, hand in twining hand, lost in the voluminous sleeves of the second nameless gentleman. Francis winds his way through an arpeggio, up and down, down and around, and concludes his meandering Mingus impression with the softest whispering decrescendo. An equally soft, scattered applause salutes his efforts - Francis pays it no mind, takes a quick bow, already untightening the screws that hold the sax’s reed in place and twisting out the neck to stow it in its case. He hears the fuzz of a radio get turned on to fill the space his sax left as he stows the now-warm instrument in among the case’s familiar scratchy velvet. The thrill after the performance hums through his chest, but his hands are steady as he buckles the case closed again and stands to leave the bar.

Before he can make his escape, however, Peggy unfolds her long legs from where she’s sat primly at the table nearest the stage and sways up to him in her scuffed blue heels. She purses dark lips and bends to kiss the air next to his cheeks, sliding warm hands up both his arms as he begrudgingly returns the greeting. “Hello, my dear. The performance was to your satisfaction, I take it?” 

She runs her hand through his hair, fluffed from the humidity and the heat of the lights, and does a little pout. “Only if there’s an encore, baby.” 

Francis leans around her tall frame to see the ubiquitous, soft shape of her date leaned on his elbows, his eyes (and, Francis presumes, his heart) caught entirely by Peggy. He sighs. “Doesn’t the same joke every week tire you?” 

She smiles and runs a chipped, painted nail down his stubbled cheek. She looks bewitching in the low light. “Nothing about pursuing you tires me. Perhaps one day my efforts will pay off--” 

“But unfortunately it is not this day--I _do_ have a prior engagement.” Francis neatly sidesteps what is almost certainly going to be another invitation back to her flat for activities of a lascivious nature, conscious of the presence of someone else’s his devotion. “Don’t make your date jealous of me now, Peg. It doesn’t do to toy with a man’s heart.” 

She sighs theatrically. “Oh, I know, you know we’re devoted to each other and disgustingly in love, but let a girl have some fun, you old fox.” 

Francis adjusts his grip on the saxophone case and smiles, kissing her cheek by way of goodbye, feeling a soft patter of urgency while he’s held by this interaction. “Now I really must go, dear, and do give Henry my love - I’m booked next Friday, too.” 

She smiles fondly. “We’ll be here, darling.” 

He nods, a little awkwardly, smiles back without teeth, and makes his way out into the steamy New York midnight. The yellow lights of the city are wreathed in the gentle mist of June, bouncing off the shining street and creating a sort of perpetual dusk even in the darkest part of the night. His motorbike is chained where he left it, tucked in a dark alley to the side of the bar, concealed from the street’s eyes while he played away in the bar underground. He shifts the trashcans and tarp that keep it hidden, buckles the sax case behind the seat, swings a leg over and guns the engine. The sound rockets up the walls of the alley, and its echoes are eaten by the fog.

_Late August. 0647 hours. The dispatch office, at an undisclosed location near Poughkeepsie, NY._

“Sir, you cannot be serious--” 

“Lower your voice.” Franklin cuts him off. Blanky looks at him, exasperated and sympathetic. 

“He’s a lush! A floozy! Incompetent, melodramatic--” 

“Agent Crozier.” Blanky’s tone was a warning. 

“And--” now Francis did drop his voice, to an incensed, hoarse whisper. “He’s-- a homosexual. I refuse to be burdened with this man. If you could call him a man.” 

Franklin looks at him, impassive, aloof, condescending in the way he always is. “Fitzjames is as much the agent you are, Crozier, perhaps more so, given he hasn’t yet thrown a fit about being assigned to work with you. Your talents are well suited to one another. We need effective teams right now, and for your next assignment especially. Even if he is...a homosexual.” 

A tense silence. Francis grits his teeth. “Next assignment….sir?” 

“Yes, your next assignment. Some suitable hardship for Queen and country, Francis, no more gallivanting about in lush American cities. We’re sending you and Fitzjames--” and here he consults a sheaf of typewritten papers, piled loosely on the heavy oak desk, “--to the Arctic Circle.” 

_The amount of whiskey I’ll be consuming tonight,_ Francis thinks. _May be a personal record. Am I proud or ashamed?_

Blanky clears his throat. “Got some fancy little doodads for you, Frankie, not to worry. Keep you nice and cozy up there with the bears and seals.” 

It is at this moment that Fitzjames enters the office, hair in a mussed cloud about his face, the fly of his _very_ tight suede pants completely down, some utterly unconventional bright blue underwear peeking through. Between catching his breath, he interrupts, “Dreadfully sorry, lads. Couldn’t make a quick exit. I-- sir. Admiral Franklin.” He comes up short at the sight of Franklin, sitting in his usual buttoned-up, monolithic way behind the huge oak desk. 

Franklin casts a disparaging eye over Fitzjames’ debauched appearance. “Fitzjames, get yourself cleaned up. Crozier, I’m sending you down with Blanky to get outfitted , and then Jopson will brief both of you. He’ll be your man on the ground from this point onwards.” 

Fitzjames frowns, runs a hand through his long hair, pushes it back behind his ear. “Sir, what about Dundy?” 

Franklin clasps his hands and purses his lips in annoyance. “Dundy is a junior officer and does not have the requisite clearance for this assignment, and I’ll thank you to refrain from questioning my judgment, Agent.” 

Despite himself, Francis feels his blood rise at Franklin’s tone, even though it’s not directed at him. _For once,_ he thinks. _And Fitzjames is the golden boy of the service, too._

Fitzjames himself stands impassive, though Francis perceives a tightness in his face. “Sir. I meant no offense.” 

Now Franklin’s simpering condescension was back. “I’m sure you didn’t, James. Now go clean up. Both of you. Dismissed.” 

For a split second, something in Fitzjames’ bearing changes, and there’s a frisson of tension in the room at the disgust in Franklin’s tone--but it’s gone almost as soon as Francis notices it. Fitzjames touches his forehead in casual salute and strides away with stiff shoulders, so unlike his customary forceful elegance. Francis nods at both Blanky and Franklin, and follows Fitzjames, tucking away that interaction in his head for later scrutiny. _Interesting._

_0710 hours._

After experiencing a veritable gauntlet of administrative hoop-jumping trying to return his kit to Requisitions, Francis makes his escape to Jopson’s briefing. The man is waiting down in the basement of the building, in the lab where Blanky’s team develops and tests their gizmos and field equipment. Fastidious as ever, he perches on the edge of Blanky’s desk and resolutely seems to be ignoring the overwhelming stimuli of the lab--the pungent smell of machine oil, the clamor of power tools, echoing conversation amplified by the stone walls and floors. Occasionally a puff of odd-colored smoke or particularly offensive odour will drift over from the beehive of frenetic activity that made up the agency’s R&D department.

“Jopson!” booms Blanky as he and Francis descend the lab’s concrete stairs. Blanky’s prosthetic leg thunks raucously against the stone floor as they make their way over. “Punctual as ever!” 

Jopson inclines his head in greeting. “Quartermaster. Agent Crozier.” 

“Francis, please, Jopson, how many times must I ask?” Francis shares a rare grin with the man. 

Jopson’s eyes scrunch at the corners. “At least once more, Agent Crozier. I wouldn’t like to give myself airs.” 

Blanky chortles and drops into a worn, vinyl desk chair, stretching out the metal leg. “Like clockwork, you two. What’ve you got for us, Jop?” 

Jopson straightens on the edge of the desk, all business, thumbing through the pile of dossiers he holds. “We’re waiting on Agent Fitzjames, are we not? I would prefer not to start without him.” 

Francis huffs, and bites back a rude remark--just as well, as Fitzjames appears almost silently next to him. His hair is damp, and he’s changed his clothes, put on new cologne. It wafts towards Francis as Fitzjames shifts and pushes his hair back, and Francis almost unconsciously inhales deeper to try and pull in some of the intoxicatingly spicy warmth. Fitzjames’ voice is rough and deep. “Late again. Got held up returning things to Requisitions. Franklin doesn’t give a man a minute to breathe, does he.” 

Jopson visibly chooses not to remark upon Fitzjames’ lack of respect for his superiors and nods. “It’s all right, Agent Fitzjames. We shall begin--with these--” and he hands thick files to the both of them, and a much thinner sheaf of typewritten papers to Blanky. 

Francis flips his open, to find a map of the Arctic Circle curving gracefully across a sheet of thick waxed paper. A seemingly arbitrary constellation of crosses, dots, lines and markings traces over the landscape. He looks for a map legend, and finds none.

Fitzjames looks grumpy. “The Arctic Circle? Really?” 

“Yes, Agent Fitzjames. Thanks to your and Agent Crozier’s...efforts, last night, we have managed to ascertain the location of a classified private laboratory hidden in the Arctic Circle.”

Fitzjames glances at him. “I haven’t been briefed on what Agent Crozier found yet.” Jopson also stops, and looks expectantly at Francis. 

“Cold weather gear,” Francis says, only looking at Jopson. “Sample containers. Guns. Heavy-duty equipment. I expect the photos are included in our files.” 

Blanky steeples his fingers, elbows resting on the worn and cracked arms of his chair. “Ye’ll be wanting to wrap up tight, boys.” 

Jopson nods, pursing his lips, and continues. “Indeed. Fortunately, we have some connections in the area, in the form of an American research base within 50 miles--not that far, on the ice. And we have a contact named Silna, codename Lady Silence; of the Netsilik tribe up there in Nunavut. She works at the station, and it was thanks to her we were able to locate the laboratory in the first place. But--” and here Jopson makes eye contact with first Francis, and then Fitzjames as he looks up from flipping through the dossier. “You are not to disclose that you had prior knowledge of her, the base, or any information contained in these dossiers. Silna has received similar instructions.”

“What, precisely, are we tasked with doing, again?” Fitzjames asks, looking irritated. 

Jopson and Blanky look at each other, sharing a moment of inscrutable telepathy. Jopson begins more cautiously, with less professional aloofness than a moment ago. “What do you gentlemen know about extraterrestrial life?” 

Before he’s even done speaking, a laugh bubbles up out of Francis, a too-harsh bark of surprise. He scoffs, “You cannot be serious.” 

Fitzjames, on the other hand, is peering at Jopson with an odd intensity. “Shut up, Crozier.” he says, pushing his long hair back behind one pierced ear.

Their loyal, levelheaded Jopson, never an irrational man for as long as Francis has known him, gazes briefly heavenward as if in a silent plea to greater powers that may or may not, in fact, reside beyond the meter-thick concrete insulating the laboratory from the rest of the world. He says, “Our sources indicate that a private investor has gone to considerable trouble to outfit a very high-caliber expedition for Arctic exploration and, further, has constructed a high-security laboratory under the ice there. We believe that this expedition, and this laboratory, are for the purposes of studying an extant form of extraterrestrial life that has been discovered preserved in the ice. The organism is--” and here something that looks to Francis almost like real anxiety, real fear, crosses his usually implacable features, his green-moss eyes, “...highly dangerous, toxic to all forms of our planet’s life, and if allowed to survive, has the potential to threaten the survival of the human species.” 

All four men are silent as this sentence lands, amidst the quotidien racket of Blanky’s lab. _What does one say to that?_ It didn’t sound real. It stretched the very limits of plausibility, of possibility--and yet--

Francis flips open the file, quickly scanning its index and locating the right section. He finds the grainy, shuttered image of an oddly-shaped growth in a petri dish staring back at him, the pupil of a foreign eye. It is a bloom of algae, a slime mold colony, an unnatural white bacterial flush dotted with blood-red. It’s started to reach tiny hairlike fingers over the sides of the petri dish, as if desperate to escape such containment. He feels a cold prickle raise goosebumps on the back of his neck. He shoves the feeling down. “Melodrama aside, what in God’s name are we meant to do about it, Mr. Jopson?” he says, to break the silence. His own voice sounds distant to his ears.

A touch of Jopson’s usual dry humor returns. “Well, dear Francis, very little can be done at this time about _that_. But Franklin wants you two up there to do reconnaissance, ingratiate yourself with the locals and the Americans, that sort of thing. They’re keen to get their hands on any kind of biological weapon, you know. It’s in our best interest to prevent that from happening. Make contact with me once you’re settled in at the base.” 

“ _Great._ ” he hears Fitzjames mutter sardonically. He can’t help but agree with the other man’s sentiment. _Bloody war-hungry bastards. Us and the Americans, both._

Blanky claps his hands. “Best get you two kitted out, then, afore you’re asleep on your feet here.” 

Jopson looks, for a moment, like he might protest, but Blanky shoots him a stern glance and he seems to decide otherwise. Now that Blanky’s said it, Francis can feel the hour in his bones, and Fitzjames doesn’t look that chipper himself. Dark circles ring his eyes, and Francis sees the deepening color of a love bite on his neck. He feels an odd pressure somewhere in his chest. _Disgust? Sympathy? Confusion?_

Whatever the feeling, it stays with him as Blanky whirls him away to take measurements, check equipment, run through the usual battery of questions that precedes any mission outfit. He stands opposite Fitzjames on the lab’s main floor as Blanky stumps around him, the servos of his mechanical leg whirring. _Brass,_ Francis notes dully through a haze of exhaustion. _Last time it was steel._

He stares unabashedly at Fitzjames when Blanky eventually leaves him in the capable hands of his apprentices, and begins pestering Fitzjames with his poking and questions. He is no longer clad in all black, having donned a fresh-looking white buttondown and black slacks, which are still almost as tightly fitting as the leather pants. The red scarf has also disappeared. He stands taller than both Francis and Blanky, hands dangling loosely by his sides, his weight canted to the left. When he tucks his hair behind his ear, Francis glimpses a winking silver stud. 

Blanky also notices. “That’s gotta come out, lad. Can’t have it freezin’ in yer ear.” 

Fitzjames seems to return to himself from some distant, interior place. He touches the earring as if he’s forgotten it’s there. “I...alright.” 

The quartermaster holds out a hand, businesslike. A wave of unreadable emotion seems to break across Fitzjames’ face. _Vanity,_ Francis’ mind supplies, unbidden, the voice of his father. _The most useless sin. We will all of us return to dust and ash one day._

But Fitzjames doesn't protest. He pops out the tiny stud and drops it into the waiting palm. Blanky slips it into some secret inside pocket of his vest, although Fitzjames doesn’t look reassured of its safety. 

Francis is too tired to reflect on it any further. Sights and sounds blur in his vision, colors of an oil painting sliding through his fingers as he’s dismissed at last and his feet carry him up out of the building. 

...

Fitzjames walks with him as he makes his way up to the street, and Francis can’t even muster annoyance at his presence. As they step out into the grey dawn, Fitzjames stops him with a hand on his arm. He startles, and only just stops himself from grabbing Fitzjames and flipping him to the ground. “What?” 

Fitzjames lets go of his arm. “I just want to know,” he starts, not looking at Francis’ face, “if we’re going to have an issue.” 

Francis scowls. “What do you mean, Agent Fitzjames?” 

He meets Francis’ eye and shoves his hands into the pockets of his bulky peacoat. “Don’t be dense. I know what they say about me at the agency. I know you requested not to have me for a partner.” 

Francis shifts and kicks at the brick wall restlessly. “Look. Even if I don’t agree with your methods, Franklin’s ordered me to cooperate. So don’t worry about it. It wasn’t...an official request.” 

“My methods.” Fitzjames repeats, cold. 

“Sure, whatever.” Francis means to end the conversation, but Fitzjames steps forward and prevents him from escaping to the street. Francis almost doesn’t step back, but Fitzjames places a huge hand against the center of his chest and pushes him against the side of the building. This close, his broad, masculine bulk looms over Francis’ shorter frame. His arm flexes, holds Francis easily in place, implacable as iron. Francis, for his part, refuses to consider feeling intimidated by a man with hair like a girl and hickeys all over his neck. He only just manages. 

“Excuse me, Agent Fitzjames--” he grits out. 

“Agent Crozier, I need to be able to trust you in a field situation. If you can’t put your feelings about the way I work or the way I live my life aside, then I will be making your life very, _very_ difficult these next few weeks. Please consider adding a little objectivity to your perspective.”

Francis feels his temper fray, worn all the more thin with weariness. “Don’t threaten me, boy.” 

Fitzjames examines his nails. “No threats here, old man. But someone like me doesn’t get very far in our line of work if he’s soft. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can fuck with me and get away with it.” His breath, hot, smelling of mint, fills the space between them, mingles with the spice of his cologne, cutting through the night's chill humidity. The moment becomes almost unbearable, and only then does Fitzjames step back, and his posture loosens. He’s got as easy of a smile as a man who’s been awake for the better part of 36 hours straight can. 

Despite himself, Francis feels some secret, animal part of himself shrink away at the sight of Fitzjames’ casually bared teeth. He shrugs his leather jacket around his shoulders and moves past Fitzjames, striding down the street. “Goodbye, Agent Fitzjames. Rendezvous in 48 hours.” 

“Likewise, Agent Crozier.” comes the clipped reply. Francis keeps walking, and doesn’t look back at him. He’s been assigned a small, sparse apartment for the interim, some place up the line, and he holds it fixed in his mind as his feet and then the trains convey him there. The gentle swaying of the dimly lit car against the utter, impenetrable blackness of the tunnels reminds him of being underwater. 

_September. 0630 hours. A small airfield in Canada._

The sun casts huge gold and purple shadows as it slowly rises across the tarmac. Francis and Fitzjames stand in frosty silence as a squat, heavy-looking cargo plane taxis up the runway towards them. The airfield--a tiny, private affair about as far north as it was possible to go before leaving civilized places--held only a few planes of similar size and function. But rarely were flights classified in the way this one was. 

At last, the plane stops about 20 meters away from the two men, and rocks back on its wheels. The engine’s roar subsides to a steady thrum, and the huge propeller continues to spin as the metal bird settles onto the tarmac. The hatch pops open with a metallic screech, and two men clamber out, both wearing thick coats, snow pants, heavy boots. They tug down their face coverings as they approach, and Francis and Fitzjames make ready to haul their luggage to the plane. 

One of the men holds up a hand as he jogs over. He’s a lanky, scruffy fellow, one of those guys whose hair is beginning to grey even though he’s maybe in his 30s. The other man is a little shorter, a little younger--but he could also just be baby-faced. Both men have shaggy, uncut hair and thick beards, but their faces are both jovial under matching snowburned cheeks. 

The lanky fellow yells over the din of the engine. “We’re waiting for a third! We’re not to take off until he’s here!” as the two reach Fitzjames and Francis. Francis unshoulders his backpack and puts down his duffle to shake the man’s gloved hand. “John Bridgens, though most call me Bridger, and this is Henry Peglar, but we call him Johnny. We’re your pilots, and we’ll be staying at the base with you. If you need going anywhere, we get to know about it.” 

Bridgens’ grip is strong, but brief. Johnny squints at Crozier like he might know him from somewhere, but then smiles brightly instead. “At your services, gentlemen.” 

Fitzjames is watching Francis interact with the two men closely--for what reason, Francis cannot fathom. He feels aware of Fitzjames' gaze the same way one is aware of the slant of the sun across the sky. 

“Who are we waiting on?” he asks instead, uncomfortable under the scrutiny. Johnny pulls out a rumpled document from the pocket of his jacket, and a pair of comically tiny reading glasses strung on an incongruously kitschy pink chain, like one Francis’ late mother would have worn. He replies, “Let’s see...a Dr. Harry D.S. Goodsir.” he says, squinting in just the way Francis’ late mother would also have done.

Bridgens looks round at the name and crows, “Good old Harry! Lovely man! I remember him from the last season we were flying some of youse civilians back and forth.” 

“Last season?” asks Fitzjames. “What, was he on holiday?” 

Bridgens chuckles. “No, no, tourism ain’t the thing in Nunavut, if you can believe--” Johnny snorts. “He was needed at the research station. Some sciencey nonsense above our pay grade. He’s a keen biologist and a medical doctor besides--saved a few toes of mine from the frostbite, even. Has a wicked mind for chess, and poker too. He’d win all our booze off us, then give it right back and say he was a teetotaler. Imagine!” 

“Indeed.” says Fitzjames drily. He looks at his watch. “Any idea when he’ll be arriving?” 

Bridgens shrugs. “Said 7. Dependent on the roads, really. Gives us enough time to get you boys loaded up in old Erebus here.” He waves a hand towards the plane. On its dented, bolted metal sides, the word EREBUS is messily stenciled in military lettering. Fitzjames raises an eyebrow. 

“She’ll fly, and fly well.” Johnny says, with utmost gravity. “Bridger’s the best pilot we’ve got, and I’m best copilot. Through any storm.” 

“Although,” Bridgens says, tapping one gloved finger against his crooked, bony nose. His glove is so bulky that he could plausibly be tapping almost anywhere under his eye. “Nose tells me when there’s storms a-coming. Doesn’t do to get caught in the whiteout. That way lies madness.” 

Francis nods, uncertain what to do or say. Fitzjames laughs good-naturedly, and continues to joke with Bridgens and Peglar as if they’re already all good friends. Francis--not for the first time--feels a pang of envy prick his chest. There was a reason he was the thief, the cat burglar, the finger on the trigger, the muscle, and never the talker. Never the sting. Never the honeypot. And he could see, through the cold, analytical part of him that he so often resented, that despite his misgivings Fitzjames would fulfill that role so _damnably_ well.

_0714 hours._

Goodsir arrives in a green pickup truck, driven by a grim-faced military fellow who does not move to assist Goodsir in unloading his luggage. He’s not a slight man, but the way he moves makes him appear smaller than he is. Thick glasses and a cloud of dark, curly hair frame his face, which is creased with both smile lines and worry lines. When Goodsir’s got all his bags out of the truck, the military man drives away without so much as a backwards glance. Goodsir, though, stops and gives a little wave goodbye at the truck’s tail lights. Francis feels immediately endeared. 

He gives Francis a strong, enthusiastic handshake and an awkward smile, belying a considerable physical strength that seems incongruous to how his eyes shine benevolently at the rest of the world. “Delighted to meet you, just delighted. Call me Harry.” His voice, even, is gentle and warm. 

Francis privately wonders what it is about this environment that makes everyone so damn friendly. Usually the graveness of his resting expression is enough to deter even the most committed of people, but it seems not to work here. _The isolation? The cold, perhaps?_ he thinks with a touch of amusement. _Maybe I’m just losing my touch._

Presently everything is loaded onto the plane, and the five men follow, strapping into heavy chest harnesses bolted to benches running down the interior of the plane. Fitzjames hasn’t acknowledged Francis beyond a frosty nod and terse, clipped answers when addressed directly. _Haughty bastard._

To Francis’ secret amusement, Goodsir and Fitzjames do not seem to know what to make of one another at all. Goodsir seems confused by Fitzjames’ easy confidence and blustery charisma, and Fitzjames’ usual social grace is continually stymied by Goodsir’s earnest sincerity. Francis looks on, vindictively watching Fitzjames engage Goodsir in conversational sallies that the other man returns with either disarming honesty or incomprehensibly specific answers concerning his research, his time in the Arctic, or his experience as a medical doctor that lead Fitzjames into intellectual dead ends. Occasionally, he looks to Francis with a sort of frustrated desperation as pockets of awkward silence descend thick and fast, and Francis is almost sorry when at last Bridgens and Peglar climb into the cockpit and start hollering their pre-flight checks, and then the roar of the engine makes conversation impossible. 

The whole plane seems to shake and shudder with the racket and gasoline fumes as it slowly accelerates down the runway. Francis tips his head back and closes his eyes, feeling the frame of the plane shake until at last, when the clamor and shuddering become unbearable, it lifts free of the tarmac. The cold, thin air of high-speed flight seeps in through the seams and joints of the plane and swirls around the cabin. Francis tugs up the sherpa collar of his jacket--no motorcycle gear here. _I’d freeze to death in an hour,_ he thinks glumly, already missing his bike. 

When he opens his eyes, he looks to his right to find Goodsir curled up and fast asleep despite the deafening roar of the wind and engines. His mouth is open and his breath blows steady blooms of fog across his glasses in the cold air. Across from him, Francis lifts his eyes to see the tense, rigid form of Fitzjames. His eyes are staring sightlessly straight ahead, and the edges of his nostrils are white as they flare with quick breaths. He’s gripping the seat of the bench so hard that Francis can count the tendons in his hands. _They didn’t tell me you were afraid of flying...then again, that’s not a wise thing for an agent to admit._

There’s that pressure in his chest again, and Francis thinks it must be sympathy. Here was Fitzjames: arrogant, prideful, immodest Fitzjames, professional spy, admitted deviant, genial to everyone but Francis--and he was afraid of flying in airplanes. It somehow made him more human. Less of an anomaly. 

Francis shifts on the hard plane bench, and Fitzjames’ head whips around, tracking the movement. Francis clearly sees the immediate cringe of shame and anxiety that follows what was obviously an involuntary reflex. As if with great effort, Fitzjames meets his eyes. 

And Francis decides not to look away. He sees that James wants him to, is silently begging him not to gaze upon his fear when he can’t help or hide it, but Francis looks anyway. He holds Fitzjames’ gaze steadily, and very slowly, he deliberately blinks once. _I see you. It’s okay._

Fitzjames’ brow creases just slightly, as though he’s surprised and thinking through what it might mean that Francis is blinking at him. After a moment, he blinks back in the same slow way. 

Shifting again, and feeling the weight of the other man’s gaze on him, Francis breathes very deeply, in and out, almost telegraphing the movement. Fitzjames hesitates, but follows suit with only a small hitch of his shoulders. Francis breathes again, still holding Fitzjames’ gaze, and in this way they pass breath back and forth for a few minutes. Eventually, the frantic cast of James’ eyes eases, and his hands relax from their grip on the bench. His gaze softens, shining hard-pressed gratefulness to Francis with such unexpected, sincere emotion that, without thinking, Francis breaks the moment and looks down. 

When he forces himself to look back up, Fitzjames has his hands clasped in his lap and has tipped his head back, closed his eyes to the world--not sleeping, Francis can tell, just...retreated, back to that same interior place he’d gone during Blanky’s equipment assessment. _Perhaps...it would be best if I did the same…_

_1138 hours. An American research station in the Nunavut region. One hundred and thirty-three klicks from the nearest permanent settlement._

The plane touches down with a violent shudder in Nunavut, and Goodsir jerks awake next to Francis. “Where--who’s here?” he says muzzily, voice roughened with sleep. Francis, too, opens his eyes, but he looks over at Fitzjames, across the plane. He’s gripping the straps of his chest harness, but looks relieved to be on the ground at last, though he avoids eye contact with Francis. It feels as if there are threads strung between them, fine and gossamer as spider’s silk, spun from their clouded breaths--almost insubstantial, but there all the same.

Francis thinks of this as they disembark the plane, and the heat of the plane and his breath billows out in gold-limned plumes. The landscape is positively luminous, pink and blue with the blush of the Arctic’s morning sun. The ragged bulk of rocky mountains rises from the mirror surface of the sea and snow, creating a valley out of the inlet the plane had touched down near. Between their stone flanks Francis can see infinite expanses of desert snow, like the blank edges of a map. If the raw, desolate beauty of this place hadn’t stolen his breath already, the cold is making a concerted effort--his chest feels tight, and his heart jackhammers as his body responds to the chill. He struggles not to cough. 

The plane has, in actuality, landed on a short, rough-ploughed airstrip set apart from the squat buildings that make up the Arctic base. Most of the structures are grey, prefab-looking things, with improvised entryways, stairs and ramps made out of packed snow. Every edge not blasted to matte by the wind gleams silver at odd angles, from the sunlight bouncing off of the snow. 

A brace of husky dogs comes running at the sound of their arrival and the shouts of Bridgens and Peglar, howling, curly tails wagging in excited figure-eights. One--an unusually large, mostly-black beast--runs right up to Francis, and he holds his gloved hand out for it to sniff. The dog obliges, tongue lolling in a canine smile, and then unexpectedly stands to plant massive paws on Francis’ shoulders. He almost stumbles, laughing, as the husky licks his face excitedly. Out of the corner of his eye he sees the tall, monolithic silhouette of Fitzjames standing in his huge black coat, stark against the glowing white and blue of the landscape. He’s staring at Francis, again. 

Francis pushes the dog from his shoulders and scratches its pointed ears. It shoves a cold nose into his palm affectionately. “Don’t like dogs, Fitzjames?” 

He shrugs, his face inscrutable. A leggy, silver-faced husky is circling him, and pushes its face under Fitzjames’ mittened hand like Francis’ husky had, clearly looking to be pet. He jumps, swearing, and Francis laughs again, raucously. He glares at Francis and tries unsuccessfully to shoo the silver husky away. Francis continues to snicker, and leaves Fitzjames to the dogs and sets about shifting his things into the base. 

A whistle cuts through the song of the wind, sharp and piercing, and all the dogs that had appeared to greet the plane turn as one and lope to a bundled-up man, twenty pairs of ears pricked. One by one, the man feeds the lot with treats from his pocket, then snaps and whistles a different note, a different pattern. The dogs bound off en masse and disappear in the maze of buildings. “Cute buggers, aren’t they!” he shouts over the wind as he walks over. “My name’s Ned! I’m the dog handler for the base! Did ye have a nice flight?” 

Fitzjames and Francis both step forward to shake Ned’s hand, but he catches Francis off guard by moving in close and gripping the inside of Francis’ forearm--a warrior’s greeting. Francis grips his thick-sleeved arm back, unsure of what to make of this man’s buoyant camaraderie. He, too has a bushy beard and shaggy hair, pushed back with a headband underneath his fur hat. His face is ruddy, shining, and his general affect reminds Francis of the dogs he’s in charge of. _Again with this peculiar friendliness,_ he thinks. 

Fitzjames smiles easily, grips Ned’s arm. “Flight was top. A bit cold, though.” 

Ned chuckles. “Stanley tells me you’re proper clever at reading ice, or radiation, or something? Be a nice change to have someone less grumpy around.” 

Both Francis and Fitzjames nod. Francis shoves his hands into his pockets and lets Fitzjames talk. “Yes, we’re here on commission to investigate some unusual readings that--Dr. Silna, I believe?--picked up a few months past.” The cover story floats off Fitzjames’ tongue like snowflakes. Peglar yells from the base door, interrupting them. “Get your asses inside! I’m fucking freezing!” 

“Keep your hair on, Peg!” Ned hollers back, his broad vowels contrasting funnily with Peglar’s flat American accent. He jerks his head and starts walking, Francis and Fitzjames close behind. “Let’s get you lads moved in, eh?” 

_1200 hours._

The inside of the base has clearly seen years of use, bedecked as it is with generations of attempts to make the inside of a grey metal box feel more homey. Francis smiles when he sees the red and teal of a Liverpool FC pennant strung over a window in the rec room--empty, for now, the whirr of a small fridge and the muffled shush of the wind outside the only things filling the space. An old, raggedy pool table squats in the center of the room, ringed by couches worn threadbare and dull. He only gets a brief glimpse, though, before Bridgens ushers him further into the maze of hallways. 

“Home sweet home,” he says, pushing open a nondescript grey door, practically indistinguishable from the myriad of other nondescript grey doors that proliferate inside the building. _I’ll have to put a sign or something on the door so I don’t lose my own room,_ Francis thinks. 

Fitzjames gets there first, and peers around inside. “So this is my room?” 

Bridgens’ face does a complicated little dance before settling on a kind of apologetic cringe. “Actually, you and Mr. Crozier will have to share this room.” 

Fitzjames turns about. “You cannot be serious.” 

Bridgens shrugs. Francis sidles up next to Fitzjames and peers into the room, expecting the worst. 

And--it’s not _terrible_ . It’s definitely... _workable_. He casts about for something to say. “Very, uh, cozy. Thank you, Bridger.” 

Fitzjames sighs, irritated. “Are you absolutely positive? And there’s really...only one bed? If it can be called that.” 

Bridgens nods, still looking apologetic. “Aye, well, space is at quite a premium here. This was old Eliot’s room, before he, uh--well, he got reassigned. We’d been using it for storage until we heard you fellas would be joining us. And the bed’s perfectly serviceable!” 

Fitzjames looks at Francis, and sighs again. “Well, we can sleep in shifts, I suppose.” then under his breath, “Like being back in the Navy.” 

_Late October._

In this way, with admittedly less fanfare and quarreling than Francis was expecting, the days pass in Nunavut. Francis and Fitzjames work out a sleeping schedule--with some bickering--that allows each of them a half-day and a half-night of time to work and then to sleep on the small, rather flattened mattress tucked into the corner of their shared room. 

The issue of sharing space is, at first, such an exercise in awkwardness that Francis wonders if it will actually become an impediment to the success of their mission. Always he feels hyper-aware of Fitzjames’ gaze upon him, or gaze off of him; it is like a palpable heat against his skin, noticed in both presence and absence. Briefly there are overlaps in their working schedule--Fitzjames will have to wake Francis up so that he can sleep, or Francis will kick Fitzjames out for the same reason, and they will occupy those crepuscular moments, half in dreams. There is a bright yellow safety light that illuminates a sort of central courtyard in the base, and its glow beams in through the window like a benevolent eye. Sometimes, when Francis climbs into the still warm-bed at the end of his day and the beginning of Fitzjames’, and Fitzjames is stripping out of his double-layered long johns and hopping into his work clothes, his body appears illuminated in lines of gold behind Francis’ sleep-heavy eyelashes. Like mercury, it pools in the hollows of his chest, the space between ribs. When Fitzjames turns, the webbed gloss of a huge bullet-wound scar blooms across his left side, mirrored through his left bicep. Francis wonders at it, wonders at this cruel artifact of some old violence, but sleep always takes him before he can muster the boldness to ask. The lines of Fitzjames’ long body remain burned in Francis’ vision, as if the man is an angel, as if he should be afraid. _But I’m not afraid of Fitzjames._

The other residents of the base are far less extroverted than Bridger, Johnny or Ned, who are as inseparable of a trio as it is possible to be. Stanley he has to intentionally seek out, and experiences a profoundly awkward introduction that he does not particularly wish to justify with any further interaction than necessary. And Goodsir is always friendly, always turning towards Francis with soft eyes and asking him his thoughts on this or that trifling thing, offering him coffee, books to read. But Goodsir is rarely alone--more often than not he is attached at the hip to Dr. Silna. 

It is Dr. Silna who truly drives home for Francis the gravity of his and Fitzjames’ mission. Not through anything she says; indeed, she speaks so rarely that Francis cannot remember her saying more than perhaps twenty words aloud in his presence, all told, and all of them in Netsilik. Rather, she and the other men communicate through what Goodsir tells Francis is a melange of spoken English, American sign language and signs they’ve invented for discussing their research, although Goodsir will sometimes speak to her in Netsilik with the thoughtless fluency of long seasons of practice. He lends Francis the thick, hand-typed packet that comprises his homemade Netsilik glossary, and Francis resolves to commit a handful of words to memory each night. 

No, Francis thinks, the thing that truly disturbs him is the way Dr. Silna meets his eyes sometimes, and the look he finds within them. Her eyes are ancient in a way that does not fit with the youth of her body, and he knows that she knows what they are truly here for. He finds her in the lab one day, in a rare moment away from the comforting quiet of Goodsir’s presence, with the image of the growth in the petri dish pulled up on her screen. She’s sat back from the computer, her usually-perfect posture instead disarranged across her overstuffed desk chair and her hands in a loose knot, the twin black moons of her eyes staring without reservation. She turns the chthonic weight of her gaze on Francis as he stumbles to a halt across the threshold of her and Goodsir’s shared laboratory, and he casts about for an excuse. “I, ah, my apologies for interrupting you, Dr. Silna--” 

She holds up a hand, stopping his clumsy tumble of words, and reaches for the PDA that she carries to type messages for Francis and Fitzjames. She taps at it for a moment with her stylus, and holds up its little green display. _Do you know what it is?_

He peers at her screen, looking at the uncanny shape of the thing in the petri dish. “...No. Even if I were a scientist, I don’t think I would know.” 

_I do not know what it is either. I have not seen anything like it in any of my research. I do not think there is anyone alive who has._

Her words send a thrill of uneasiness through Francis’ chest. “What does that mean? Anyone alive?” 

_I mean that if anyone knows enough about this creature to go hunting for it, then they are already dead._

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I started with Francis playing a track from my favorite Mingus album (Invisible Lady from Tonight at Noon) in a New York gay bar, and ended with some homoerotically charged horror. Yes, there is only one bed. Yes, they are going to fuck in it. Yes, Peggy = Peglar, Francis is just faceblind and hasn't got the gaydar that God gave a grasshopper. Wreathed, my dear, happy fall, and stay tuned, because these boys are only going to get colder.


End file.
